April 16, 2013 By 10 Comments

HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4 upgrade dilemma

For the last 12 months I have quite happily been using the Samsung Galaxy S3 as my phone of choice.  Believe it or not, despite the wealth of handsets I have on offer to me in my role I do not change that often. In fact I have little need to upgrade even now, but I have recently sustained some damage to my S3 so now seems as suitable time as any to decide on an upgrade.

I could spend days looking at all the finer points of which device to go to next, but here is the though process I have gone through.image

What I like about the Samsung Galaxy S3?

My S3 has held up pretty well. Whilst not perfect in every area it still runs fairly fast, the battery life is acceptable and there are plenty of features on the phone.

I like that it is well supported with accessories and some of the key things like microUSB positioning work well. For example it frustrates me how Sony’s microUSB ports are on the side of the phone.

[Read more...]

Tagged With: , , ,
March 22, 2013 By 4 Comments

Naming conventions and design strategy: Samsung vs HTC

Revolution vs Evolution

Both HTC and Samsung have just announced new top of the range devices. Both run on Android and have comparable feature sets, but the design approach and naming conventions used for the two are vastly different. Samsung’s approach to its flagship over the last 12 months – a consistent name and form factor – has given it an advantage other than money when it comes to marketing, which is quite the opposite to how HTC is positioned.

Many have been quick to comment, almost discerningly, that the Galaxy S4 is an evolution, rather than revolution, of the S3. This is true, but it’s a wise and well-considered move from Samsung – at this stage it’s much better in terms of sales for it to make iterative additions to its catalogue than to revolutionise its flagship each year. That’s not to say HTC’s choice to overhaul its design is foolish – it isn’t – but rather that decisions made over the last couple of years have dictated how these two handsets are named and shaped.

So the Samsung Galaxy S4 seems like a slight upgrade from the S3, but we shouldn’t have expected anything else. It may look very similar to its predecessor, but it also looks similar to the Note 2 and, to an extent, the S3 mini. You can tell it’s an upgrade, but not so much so that it’s unrecognisable from the rest of the family. Similarly, we can expect the Galaxy Note 3 to follow the design of the S4 – as was the case with the equivalents last year – and we may even see an S4 mini released  to offer a feature set that sits between the S3 and the S3 Mini. This creates a situation for Samsung whereby it has 5 or 6 devices released within 18 months of each other that have the same look, but cover a spectrum of features and budgets. In other words, if you want to buy a new smartphone, chances are a member of the Galaxy S or Galaxy Note range will fit your criteria. At the moment, therefore, it doesn’t make sense for Samsung to revolutionise a handset and form factor that has become so well-known.

Galaxy Comparison

[Read more...]

Tagged With: , , , , ,
December 12, 2012 By

Windows Phone 8: the third wheel or a genuine contender?

The growing popularity of Android and iOS has some people worried that we are facing an era of mobile monopoly, but with two major players dominating the market. It is hard to judge if this is a big problem because having two companies dominating is not a constrictive situation in most industries.

In the mobile industry, however, it means that the best apps, accessories and news coverage will gravitate towards those two platforms and this puts the others at a disadvantage which is not easy to recover from. With RIM struggling to bring relevance to the BlackBerry platform, we are left with Microsoft to try to break the stranglehold that Google and Apple have at this time.

I have spent the past week working with Windows Phone and come to some conclusions as to where it is at currently, what could be improved and what potential it has.

[Read more...]

Tagged With: , , , ,
August 28, 2012 By

Do you really need LTE?

I am going to be a luddite now and suggest that you do not need LTE. Continue reading to find out why.

[Read more...]

Tagged With:
August 16, 2012 By

Smartphone ‘How To’

Because sometimes we just have to ask.

ID-10087052There comes a time for most of us (we know some of you know all you can about phones) when we are just not sure of how to do something. 

There are many examples we could give, from a simple factory reset through to setting a a specific led notification light colour for emails from your Mum.

So the question is who or where do you turn to, to find the answer?

Friends, the web, forums, the manufacturer, the phone shop?

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tagged With:
August 13, 2012 By

Water Damage–You don’t have to drop it in a bucket of water

It can’t be water damage, I didn’t get it wet!

ID-10056037

We have all heard of someone who has dropped their phone in the sink, in a bucket of water, in the river or even in the toilet.  The result usually is the death of the phone or electronic device that came into contact with the water.

However the increased time we spend with our phones and electronic equipment means that more devices are being damaged, often beyond economical repair as a result of water damage.

Now it is fair to say that most products like smartphones and tablets should and often will survive the odd water splash be it from a tap or the rain.  However, unless specifically sold as waterproof or water resistant then the devices are still prone to water damage. Even those sold as waterproof can be subject to water damage under certain circumstances.

Manufacturers are doing more to protect devices.  Making stronger seals and even coating products to be water resistant but this will not always stop water.

It is often under estimated or forgotten that our phones spend so much time with us.  At home, at work, in the garden, during sports, at the beach on holiday etc.

Each location has different humidity’s and something like taking your phone into the bathroom that may be hot from the steam, can and does ingress into your phone through the smallest of gaps.  Running with the phone in our hand as a music player and GPS logger, sweat can drip and sit on the phone. This moisture has to go somewhere and it can settle on the main board of the phone, the expensive bit that gets damaged and is uneconomical to repair!

Now this is somewhat of a contentious issue because equipment should be able to survive our modern lifestyles but a phone can’t be designed to suit everyone’s uses and as phones get more capable, as well as older, more worn and abused

All of these give rise to a wealth of potential opportunities for water ingression and damage to occur.

I know this is a contentious issue and water damage can write off for many of us £500 which we can not afford to replace.

However, I wanted to just gently remind you to be considerate to the things your phone goes through on a daily basis and question, if your phone were to become water damaged, but you haven’t dropped it in a bowl of water, why that might be.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Whatareandroidphones

Tagged With:
August 2, 2012 By

How important is an eco-system?

The big players in the computing industry are racing to build eco-systems that tie users in to their products and services. Apple is trying hard, and largely failing, with iCloud and Google is following with the Nexus Q and the many recent changes made to Google Play. Where Google wins quite easily is in its ability to provide web services that work at speed and more importantly in harmony. Microsoft is also trying hard, but is struggling a little to deal with the disparate nature of Windows and the fact that so many users are using different computers, different versions of Windows and the free-for-all that is the Windows app industry.

The key to a useful eco-system that can tie people in is in making it work in the home and Apple has led the way here. I always thought that Apple TV was a gimmick until I bought one and was able to tap a button on my iPhone and watch the movie on the TV without doing anything else. It’s all wireless, instant and rather magnificent in its approach. It can play movies and music stored on my iMac in an instant and it all just works. iCloud is way behind this experience and this is where Google leads. I can go to Google Play on my desktop and install an app to my phone without even touching it. Google Calendar, Gmail and all of its other online services are instant and reliable and streets ahead of everyone else.

So, Apple leads in integrated hardware and Google in software, but they both face the same problem in trying to grow their respective markets. They need to tie users in while at the same time letting them be free to make their own choices. Apple is particularly bad at this and often comes over as ruthless in its approach to competition. Google is particularly good at this, but requires a lot of personal information for us to make the most of its services.

Eco-systems are the future and we are poised at a ‘very’ interesting point in their development. As to who will win, let us know your thoughts on the issue.

Tagged With:
July 16, 2012 By

Streaming

Spotify, TV, news, YouTube, multi-player games, web browsing, video calling, streaming live events.

Think about it for a second- we consume huge amounts of data every second of every day and never stop to consider that our phones are mere portals for everything that is out there. Take away the internet and you have a product that can make phone calls and send and receive text messages. It can take photos and play games that would have to be downloaded by a computer which is attached to your phone with a wire. How awful.ID-10078103

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[Read more...]

Tagged With:
July 9, 2012 By

Everyone is taking a bite out of Apple

Apple has for the past half-decade dominated the technology headlines, the design press, tablet sales and given the smartphone industry a huge kick up the you know what. The share price has rocketed and so have quarterly financial reports, but this could all be about to change.

They say that when you are at the top you can only go one way and small chinks are appearing in the aluminium armour that Apple has polished so carefully in the 2000′s. The iPad is of course selling well, but the Microsoft Surface has a big chance considering that 90% of the world’s computers run Windows. Indeed, consider Windows 8 on a smartphone, tablet and desktop and you can see where Microsoft is heading. I would bet that Microsoft will get there before Google or Apple in building an identical eco-system between all three form factors. And then there is the Nexus 7, a tablet so cheap and at 7″ it is the right size for a tablet (in my opinion). It could gain substantial ground before Apple releases the smaller iPad.

The Galaxy SIII is a fantastic smartphone and so is the HTC One X and the Galaxy Nexus. All are arguably better than the iPhone 4S from a hardware point of view and if the rumours surrounding the iPhone 5 are correct, they still will be. Apple needs to think bigger in terms of smartphones to keep pace because a new phone that is similar to the 4S in stature will not do what the previous models have done, nowhere near.

And then there is iCloud. Google does web integration better than Apple and so does Microsoft. I use an iMac every day and at no point does it feel the same as my iPad or iPhone- some of the features such as Photo Stream are useful, but Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs are my weapons of choice to get stuff done. Everywhere I turn, I see red flags for Apple and green flags for Google and Microsoft. I may be wrong and in a way I hope I am because one thing Apple does well is drive the entire industry, but those red flags keep coming back to me.

Tagged With: , , , ,
June 29, 2012 By

Project Glass: Would you record your entire day, if you could?

Would 24 hour POV recording be a step too far?

Google’s Project Glass was showcased at Google I/O earlier this week and made available for US-based attendees to pre-order for delivery in early 2012. It is reported that Google expects the glasses to be available to consumers in 2014.

In terms of hardware capabilities, this means that we are not that far off being able to record our entire day, or at least large parts of it. Granted, we won’t all be recording our days the minute that Google Glasses are available, but it is certainly a realistic possibility within the next decade, in a technological sense. 

Would this be for the best? It would certainly help some – Alzheimer’s sufferers for example. Or is it a step closer to the frightening situation painted in Charlie Brooker’s dark satire, Black Mirror:The Entire History of You (trailer here).

My question is – if someone gave you the chance tomorrow to record your day from start to finish, would you do it?

«Older Posts